


Silent And Still

by MichellesPenScratchz



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Canon Timeline, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Child Timeline, Death, Gen, Guilt, Malink hinted but not shown, Missing Scene, No Romance, Post-Ocarina of Time, Pre-Twilight Princess, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25957741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MichellesPenScratchz/pseuds/MichellesPenScratchz
Summary: An unsung hero perishes, his duty fulfilled twofold. His regrets weigh heavily on him and deny him the peace he left behind long ago in a secret forest of eternal youth. There is no one there with him at the end, save for the one who loved him the most.
Relationships: Epona & Link (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 31





	Silent And Still

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this Tumblr prompt.](https://otp-promptly.tumblr.com/post/626661050131136512/tw-death-a-cradling-bs-limp-body-in-their-arms) I wanted to go for an interpretation that was 1) non-romantic, and 2) a little unexpected.

A pallor of death hung over the battlefield, silent and still. Tattered banners bearing the Hylian phoenix scattered the ground, some of them aflame. Beneath the broken and smoldering sigils laid many suits of armor, their occupants no longer moving. Hours ago, when they had marched into battle, their breastplates and shields had gleamed like the midday sun. Now they were dinted. Scorched. Stained red.

Of the enemy force there was no sign save for corpses. The Knights of Hyrule had valiantly repelled the invaders from their kingdom, but the price had been heavy.

One horse’s hooves echoed throughout the grim scene. This horse was a veteran as much as any of the fallen and, even without instruction from reigns or whip, knew to navigate the bloody field without trampling any who lay there. Yet she would only stop for one of them.

She found him surrounded by fallen foes, and partially entangled in a thicket of greenery.

Though he wore the same bronze shade of armor as all his compatriots, she knew him at once. He lay on his side in the brush. An arrow protruded from his right eye, but his left shone blue as ever as he lifted his gaze weakly to look at her. The blood weeping from his wounded eye mingled into the straw blonde hair that had slipped free from under his three-columned helm.

His sword and shield had fallen at his side, and he clutched his abdomen tightly with both hands. The back of his left hand beamed with that triangular mark…but the mark’s luster was faltering and fading.

Despite his grimace of pain, he smiled. “Of course you…came back…” he managed. “Fitting I should go…with you at my side…”

Epona’s heart sank into grief. She nuzzled Link’s left hand at his abdomen, trying to lend to it what that triangle mark no longer could. She pled his hand to take her reigns, to pull him onto his feet and into the empty saddle on her back—away from this terrible place.

His hand did lift, but only to stroke the side of her face affectionately. With his hand moved, she could see the wound in his belly he had been grasping. A mortal wound, struck by the blade of one of the enemies that now lay lifeless around him. Or perhaps by one that had fled, content that this Knight of Hyrule had fallen from the blow and would never rise again.

Epona tossed her mane and nickered sadly. _I’m so sorry…_ the mare might have said if she were capable of human speech. She longed for him to understand her somehow. _I never should have left you alone…_

When they’d first charged into battle, rider and steed, she’d heard the whiz of an arrow overhead. She’d known it had struck him; she’d felt the weight lifted from her saddle as he fell. She ought to have stopped charging, to stay with him as the violence engulfed him. After all, her bond with him was strong. It was a bond forged by more than just the ocarina song he played to bring her always galloping to him. She felt, in a way she couldn’t quite comprehend, that their bond went beyond a beginning and an end. It was a bond that existed in more than just the time she knew.

And yet, as the battle had raged around them then, it was another bond that had bade her flee. Her thoughts turned to her precious foals at home at Lon Lon Ranch, waiting for her to come home. She’d seen them as though before her eyes, grazing in the rich green corral. She’d seen them pricking their ears and lifting their heads anxiously in the direction she had gone to carry Link into combat.

By the time she had recovered herself and remembered her duty, it was too late—she had lost her rider in the thick of warfare. She saw the cost now that she returned to him in the aftermath. On foot, half-blinded, he had proceeded to fight until the very end.

 _You needed me and I left you here. I’m so sorry, Link, I’m so sorry,_ the mare wanted to tell him. Still his hand stroked her nose, and she sensed no anger or blame in him.

Nor did she sense peace, however.

“Go to them… Epona…” he coughed. “The ranch…your foals…and Malon…Malon’s…” His fingertips slackened on her nose, and his hand dropped to the ground.

“I just wish… I could have passed on to him…” were the final words to escape his throat. Then he went silent and still. The triangle mark vanished from his hand completely.

Desperately, despairingly, Epona prodded his hand…his chest…his head. Her efforts availed her nothing. She gave a snort, and a short but piercing neigh. In spite of her equine sobs and wails, he was gone.

 _I’m so sorry, Link,_ the mare thought, her soft nose lowered to rest on his cheek. For an eternal moment, all thoughts of going home to the ranch, her foals, and the redheaded ranch girl with the babe in her arms abandoned Epona. She could not bear to leave his side, even if her grief bound her to him the entire night. _I love you so much._

A golden glow seemed to gently caress the side of the horse’s long face. _And I love you too,_ a voice thought back.

She raised her head in surprise, and turned to look at the source of the aura. There, beside her, a brilliant golden wolf sat on its haunches. Her natural instinct to fear such a creature was nowhere to be found, for she looked into the wolf’s eyes—one glowing red, the other a deep black pit—and again she knew him at once.

 _I have loved you two lifetimes worth,_ the spectral wolf said without words. Epona didn’t understand what he meant by “two lifetimes,” but she believed him. She trusted him, as she always had. _I could have asked no more from you. My sweet mare. My Epona,_ the wolf went on.

The mare regarded the ethereal, wolven form her slain rider had taken. _Will you stay with me?_ she asked, in that way she was unable to ask him in life. _Will you come home with me?_

The wolf lowered his head. _I cannot ask you to carry my burden any longer. My regrets are my own to bear,_ he said. _Go, Epona. Live well, and find courage in the token I leave you._

Thus the wolf bounded away, fading from the battlefield and from the sight of mortal eyes. The presence of his regrets went with him, and Epona’s heart lightened when she saw what he had left for her.

There in the brush of greenery where Link had fallen, next to where his once-marked hand now lay motionless, a strange plant grew. It was a horseshoe shaped reed of grass. A soft wind blew, carrying its spores away, towards the ranch and beyond.


End file.
